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Tuesday, April 11, 2017

I have been following the integration of Android and ChromeOS since it was merely a rumor (check out these posts). Overall, I have been underwhelmed by the addition of Android apps on my Chromebook.

Access to Android on my Chromebook has had no impact on my daily routines... until recently.

On a whim, I installed the Google Classroom Android App. I rarely use it. But then I noticed that I was getting very detailed notifications from the courses I am facilitating, which was quite helpful. I get notifications of comments, late assignments, and new posts in the notification window of my Chromebook. The web-based version of Classroom does not offer these detailed notifications.

Google Classroom notifications on ChromeOS

Next, I installed the Android versions of Basecamp and Slack, both offer superior notifications compared with their web-based versions.

Mobile devices have much better notification settings and capabilities than computers. Adding the Android app for tools that I use give me more control over when and how I am notified. This is the first time I have actually benefited from running Android apps on my Chromebook. Perhaps there is some benefits to the merging of Android and ChromeOS. What do you think?